Morricone’s first Western score in 40 years is due out this Friday (December 18), on Jack White’s Third Man Records, with the film on limited release from Christmas Day and more widely in cinemas on January 8. Some of Morricone’s tracks on the release were originally written for 1982 release ‘The Thing’.

The White Stripes and Roy Orbison both contribute original material to the soundtrack, which will also feature short pieces of dialogue from the movie.

Morricone has admitted he was “shocked” by the violence of the movie. Speakiing at an event at Abbey Road Studios, the composer said:

“I have been impressed and even shocked by the violence of some of his sequences… but after giving a second thought to that I realised that yes, we are shocked by the horror of this violence but, if we think of the victims of this violence we realise that Tarantino’s position is always on the side of the underclass.”

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Morricone had spoken less highly of Tarantino in 2013, when he claimed that the director “places music in films without coherence”. At the time, the composer said: “I wouldn’t like to work with him again, on anything.”

Tarantino, meanwhile, had reportedly ditched The Hateful Eight after the script was leaked in January 2014, saying he’d publish it as a novel instead. He ended up just rewriting the ending.

Set in Wyoming shortly after the Civil War, the film revolves around eight strangers seeking shelter at a stagecoach passover called Minnie’s Haberdashery during a blizzard.

Samuel L Jackson stars as a notorious bounty hunter called Major Marquis Warren, while Kurt Russell plays ‘The Hangman’, a bounty hunter known for hanging the fugitives he captures. Jennifer Jason Leigh co-stars as Daisy Domergue, a fugitive wanted dead or alive for murder who has been captured by Russell’s character. The film’s cast also includes Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern.